Recently Opera Browser decided to add a new feature that will prevent cryptocurrency mining scripts to slow down your browser speed. Earlier this feature was available only for the desktop version of Opera browser but now the company has decided to add a similar feature in the mobile browser too. This feature will be available for Windows, Linux, and macOS browser version as well.

The new anti cryptocurrency mining feature proves immensely benevolent for users because of increasing trend of cryptocurrency embedded websites. This increasing trend has eventually slowed down the browsing speed all across the internet. Recently a study conducted by Opera revealed that almost billions of device across the world have slowed down due to crypto jacking.

Surprisingly, the user does not realize that their device is getting slowed down due to the cryptocurrency embedded scripts which is running in more than 3 million of websites.

Over the years, cryptocurrency has become a hot topic. With each passing day, more number of people is drifting toward this new technology. However, it is hugely expensive to mine the bitcoins and therefore developers have invented a new way to make use of internet user’s smartphones and desktop to mine bitcoins. All this has happened without consent which is completely unethical and leading to the reduction in internet speed. Moreover, due to uprising cases of crypto jacking mobile phones are getting warmer and it has also made an adverse impact on their overall performance.

Thus to resolve such issues, the company has added a new feature in their browser that will prevent all such websites that have embedded the cryptocurrency mining scripts. While interacting with the media “Jan Standal”, VP Product Marketing at Opera said that “When you browse the web, there are no visual clues that your device is exposed to mining,”

In the official press release the Opera has made this statement:-

"The new anti-cryptocurrency mining feature is activated by default when you enable the ad blocker on Opera Mini (iOS and Android) or Opera for Android. The ad blocker can be enabled by going to 'settings', and it will automatically detect and stop the mining scripts written into the code of a webpage."

Working of the New Feature

The working of this new feature is quite simple and it requires minimum user interference. The new feature will automatically activate upon activating the ad blocking option in your Opera browser. Further, it will auto-examine the websites to find out whether crypto jacking is present on the website or not. Once it finds the code, it will block it. To activate the ad blocking feature, you need to go to the setting page and enable the ad blocker.

Additionally, Opera browser has also developed a website that will help users to check whether their browser is affected by unwanted crypto mining or not. The website is named "cryptojackingtest.com" and it is equally effective for both mobiles and desktop versions. This version is being named Opera 50 that contains new NoCoin feature that inspects the websites and blocks them if it finds crypto mining script.

The company also informed that they have performed various tests on smartphones such as HTC One and Samsung and found that the cryptocurrency mining scripts can consume CPU usage up to 100 percent and it can enhance battery overheating and draining.

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